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Prostate cancer walk-in clinic in Plaistow wins another award

A walk-in clinic held to encourage black men to check for prostate cancer has received a national award.

The Newham Prostate Health Drop-in Clinic at the Newham African-Caribbean Resource Centre in Plaistow was run as a pilot by NHS Newham and Barts Health Care NHS Trust with the Department of Health, the National Cancer Action Team (NCAT) and Prostate Cancer UK .

The clinic, which was led by Frank Chinegwundoh MBE, consultant urologist at Barts Health, targeted “hard-to-reach” men, who might not visit their GP.

Since it was set up in May 2010 328 men have visited the clinic and nine new diagnoses of prostate cancer were made, along with diagnoses of other conditions. Men scored the clinic very highly on access and convenience. 25 per cent of men who visited the clinic did so because of word-of-mouth, complementing the advertising campaign in the community.

It has already won a Quality in Care, Excellence in Oncology award in the Helping People Live Longer category. Now it can add the “Understanding and Engaging With Communities” award at the 2013 Civil Service Diversity and Equality Awards to its list of accolades.

These awards are held annually to celebrate the work of the Civil Service in promoting equality in the workplace and share best practices for placing equality and inclusiveness at the heart of government policies.

Research shows that black men have poorer knowledge of prostate cancer, believing it is incurable with grave concerns over the impact of treatment on sexual issues. In Newham, reported outcomes for cancer were poor, especially for black men.

The pilot outreach clinic provided a safe environment for men to express fears or concerns that were not being addressed elsewhere: many men who already had symptoms who visited the clinic said that they would not have goen to see a GP because of fear, embarrassment or simply not thinking their worries were warranted. Economic analysis showed the clinic compared favourably with the cost of a GP consultation.